Results from animal and preliminaryy human exposure studies have called into question whether the 5 mg/m3 8-hour time-weighted average threshold limit value (TLV for zinc oxide fume is sufficient to protect workers against metal fitme fever.

The objectives of this study were to determine the clinical effects of exposures to low concentrations of zinc oxide and to ascertain whether these exposures elevated curculating levels of specific cytokines, which could amount for the symptoms of the metal fume fever syndrome.

Thirteen resting naive subjects inhaled, on separate days, air and 2.5 and 5 mg/m 3 of furnae-generated zinc oxide fume for 2 hours Subjects recorded symptoms and temperature and had blood drawn before and after each exposure.

The mean (± SE) maximum rise in oral temperature at 6 to 12 hours after exposure was 1.4 ± 0.3°F after 5 mg/m3, of compared with 0.6 ± 0.51 after air exposure (P<0.05).